QUINTINIA SERRATA, A. Cunningham. 
THE KUMARAHOU. 
Orpen SAI PRACE 
(Plate CXXV.) 
For the Native name “ kumarahou”’ I am indebted to the Ven. Archdeacon 
W. L. Williams, who informs me that it is applied to this plant in the East 
Cape district: it is also commonly applied to Pomaderris elliptica by the Maoris 
living to the north of the Auckland Isthmus. The settlers frequently term this 
plant the ‘‘New Zealand lilac,” and on the west coast of the South Island it 
is known as ‘ white-birch’’—perhaps the most unmeaning application of the 
comprehensive word ‘‘ birch” that has yet been recorded. | 
Quintinia serrata is a handsome flowering shrub or small tree, which attains 
its extreme dimensions on the west coast of the South Island, where it is 
upwards of 4oft. in height, with a trunk from rft. to aft. in diameter, clothed 
with black even bark. The young shoots, leaves, and racemes are clothed with 
seurfy scales, consisting of matted radiating hairs. Leaves alternate, 2in. to 
6in. long and from #in. to 2in. wide, carried on slender leaf-stalks, acute or rarely 
obtuse, texture submembranous or very coriaceous; margins waved or with a 
few distant serratures. The young shoots and leaves are excessively viscid and 
adhesive. Flowers in erect racemes, lin. to 4in. long, springing from the axils 
of the leaves, carried on slender pedicels. ‘The calyx is five-toothed at the 
margin, and bears five free petals and five free stamens with short filaments. 
The ovary is adherent with the calyx-tube, and is three-celled, with a conical 
- three-furrowed style. The fruit is a capsule, which opens by the splitting of the 
style, and contains numerous seeds. | 
The leaves of the Auckland plant are longer, narrower, and more coriaceous. 
than those of the South Island form: the latter are sometimes membranous. 
The racemes of the northern plant are very much longer than those of the 
southern plant, and the flowers are of a deep-lilac colour: in the southern plant 
they are very pale, almost white. The southern plant may be considered a 
distinct variety. 
The stamens vary considerably in length; those of the northern plant are 
usually longer than those of the South, but not invariably so. ‘In some cases 
the short stamens are abortive, but the pistils of flowers with long stamens 
are usually perfect. This point deserves further investigation, 
; PROPERTIES AND USES. 
The wood of Quintinia serrata is of a light-red colour, often prettily marked 
and figured; it is strong, tough, and elastic, but is not durable when in contact 
swith the ground. It has been used for tramway sleepers, rails, house-blocks, 
_ and fence-posts, but the results are not satisfactory. It answers better for fence- 
rails, and, in the absence of superior timbers, might be used tor general building 
_ purposes so long as it is not in contact with the ground. On account of its 
st rength, toughness, and elasticity it might be used for some wheelwrights’. work, 
